Feeling worse than ever

I have been really feeling horrible today. I have no idea what set me off on this downward spiral.

The only thing I can think of is that I had a talk with one of my little sisters for the first time in my life about childhood sexual abuse last night. I thought I would go out on a ledge and tell her I was going to counseling for the first time in my life, now at 34 years of age.

Anyways,  in our early teenage years, my sisters and I all said it had happened to us and we left it at that never went into detail. My mom was also sitting with us and was very upset that we didn't tell her earlier. We never did talk about it again after that, not until now that is.

It was and is still hard to talk about it in therapy. But talking with my sister last night really stirred some things up in my head. We finally talked about some of our experiences the name of the men etc...The thing that really bothers me the most is that my sister remembers everything in detail, and she is a year and a half younger than I.

I can only remember things up to the scary part but then can't remember what actually happened during those times. It makes me feel as though they didn't exist, I am extrememly frustrated that I cannot remember how it made me feel during and after. Did I make it all up? Are these memories in my mind just fabricated, if so why do they make me feel so horrible and why can I explain everything up to the point of the abuser putting his hands on me and then its as if I blacked out or something.

I just wish the memories would totally surface so that I don't think they are just these crazy made up stories in my mind.

Can this really happen, can you really forget things that were tramatic. How can she remember and not me, when I was older than her. She had more things happen to her than I did,  if anyone should have forgot , I would think it would be her.

I have been feeling totally horrible today, worse than ever, these thoughts are giving me the worst headache. I feel as though I could just crawl in bed and forget the world, but I can't, I have a huge exam tomorrow and I can't even get myself to study for it.

Has anyone here ever had a problem with forgetting part of their memories of abuse, if so, do they come back? I just need to know they were real, that I am not just crazy.

Pressing

Reason for edit:

 

I have taken a couple of small pieces out of your post at the beginning, in line with rule #1 (https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=46&m=106997) We have to be very careful around issues surrounding sex and illicit substances as there are legal implications for the site and we also have minors as young as 13 who use the site. Darren

 

Post Edited By Moderator (djdaz_1985) : 3/17/2008 4:31:03 AM (GMT-6)

Hi Pressing,

I am a 3rd year psychology student so I have done a fair bit of work around the brain and memory (Although this still does not make me professional! LOL)

"can you really forget things that were tramatic?" --> The honest answer is nobody knows for sure. What we are sure about is the process of repression which is where the brain locks away hurtful memories. These then get released in time given the right circumstances. (I.e. when you have moved on, you are in a better mental state or when cued by a therapist). My personal opinion (And I stress this is only an opinion) is that forgetting is not something the brain is capable of doing. I believe that everything gets stored and is never deleted. There are times (certainly for me) when I remember things spontaneously that are completely irrelevant to what I am doing but something has triggered the memory... a sight, smell, sound etc. I believe the memory is there, it just needs help coming to the surface.

I hope this is useful to you

Darren

Thanks guys,

Its just frustrating trying to describe things and not really being able to describe how I felt about them, nothing. I wish they would surface so that I can make some meaning of them and then carry on. AT least then I would know that I am not crazy that my brain didn't just make this up.

Thanks again for your advice. I can say that when I was 8 someone had said something almost verbatum of what an abuser had said to me and a memory partially came back just from hearing a statement. At first I had no idea where the memory came from, then I went to my mom and described the whole house scene set up and she said, yeah we lived in a house just like that when you were 5, then I knew it was something that had happened, but it was just the beginnig, taken into the bathroom told to do something and I don't know what happened.

Pressing

Thanks guy,
I had my weekly session with my counselor today and told her how I was feeling. She told me that some people disassociate during traumatic experiences. My sister had her own way of dealing with her abuse for me I chose to disassocaite.

She also told me I am not crazy. She also told me not to be surprised if now that we are talking about these memories, they actually start to become clearer. She says it could happen at any time, even in the form of dreams, and to write them down so that we can talk about them. She also told me that I can call her anytime that I am feeling totally overwhelemed and she will get back to me as soon as she can.

funny thing is, I journaled a little as she had suggested, just picked one memory to write about. When I was writting it, I was not so bothered, but when I read it to her in the session today, I began to get shakey and nauseous and started to cry some, of course I did my same old coping mechanism and shut the feelings right off. She is working with me on trying not to do that and to try to even recognize when I do that in daily life.
She asked where I was feeling most the emotion in my body, I told her my stomache and she said thats anxiety. So many new things to learn.

Thanks again for all your support.

Pressing

Thanks shy,
I am sorry that you had to go through these things.

AS of now I have not had any nightmares, I never remember dreaming...I think I am totally burnt out from school when I hit the bed. I am lucky to get 5 hours of sleep a night. However, when I was younger I had many, sometimes the same type of dream night after night but I didn't know the meaning of it.

But as she said it could happen, so she didn't want me to be shocked. I am not looking forward to that part.
I went through extreme anxiety and panic attacks in my early teenage years and I really don't want to go back to that state. Now if I feel one coming on I can pretty much talk myself out of it.

I totally understand you having a hard time responding, thanks for being honest with me I really appreciate it.

Pressing

You guys,
I know what you are both going through. I still have yet to remember everything and I am 49 years old. Pressings post have brought up a lot of feelings for me too. But mine are kind of healing, and writing has been therapeudic for me. You both mean so much to me, everybody does. It is like we are all healing together, and I wouldn't change this for the world. You guys really do help me a lot.

Luv and hugs, Karen

Thanks Karen,

Its definately a process....a painful one at that......but we are a lot stronger than we think......we survived alot of crap!

We just need to learn to see our value, something that seemed to be taken, but in reality it was not...thats a God given gift and no one can take it from us.
Hugs to you too!

Pressing

I just have a question regarding counseling again.

As many of you know I just started dealing with sexual abuse in counseling. My counselor says that I may start to have some of my memories return, as many of them are fragmented at this point. She says they may return at the strangest times, or in dreams etc...and that they can be overwhelming. The strange thing is I have not had anything more pop in my mind yet, but I have been much more anxious during the day, I feel myself all tense throughout the day.

I usually sleep through the night but last night I woke up about 4 or 5 times, not having bad dreams, just waking up feeling all tense and woke up with an extreme headache which I have been getting alot this week. Its normally very rare that I get a heachache.

I'm just wondering if anyone has experienced this before when getting counseling. Just wondering why I'm may be feeling so uneasy lately.

Pressing

Pressing

I did not sleep the night before whenever I had a session.
I believe this is somewhat normal, you have alot going on inside of your head,and you don't know what to expect with the therapy....

You are finally dealing with your past,and that will take it's toll on your nerves, when you are a survivor of abuse there is no way that you can just forget about it and be normal for the rest of your life.

I would try to get your mind off of it if you can,reading a book or keeping yourself busy in the house.

Take it one day at a time,you are going to have some emotions come out that you had no idea were there and it is scary,but something that you can get through.

I actually learned that we do dream 4-5 times a night:) However, I don't usually remember my dreams because I sleep right through them. I am usually pretty beat from the day and am lucky to 5 hours of sleep a night because I am a late nighter, but have to get up early for school. I can count on one hand how many dreams I remember in the past year.

Except for last night. I remembered two of them. Well, I woke up during them anyways, so I wrote them down as my counselor asked me to do. One was about work, the other one was a little weird but nothing about the abuse. But again, when I woke up I was really tense.

I woke up with a bad headache again but that may partially have do to with pulling everything out of my closet and painting it. I had a leak from a pipe in the bathroom near my closet. To make a long story short, my clothes were beignning to smell a little musty. I am quite sensitive to smell. So I figured paint the closet with a mold blocker just in case and re-wash all of my cloths:) It was something I have been wanting to do for awhile, so I went for it yesturday and finished about 2 am. I am on spring break for the next week so it was good timing. Did a spring cleaning in the process:)

I am sure that contributed to my headache, though I have been getting them alot latey. I had some muscle relaxers and hydrocodone left over from when I pulled my back out about 6 months ago. I don't really like to take meds cause I hate the feeling, so there were plenty left over. Needless to say, I am feeling quite dizzy now as I am writing from taking them an hour ago...yuck...

Anyways, I did not have a counseling session today, it was on tuesday, so that was not my reason for waking up so much. Though the more I go, the more anxious I seem to feel. Perhaps thats a normal feeling. By the way, while I was just about finished talking to her about something in the session tuesday, she said my name and then said you are really good at dissociating. The strange thing is I don't feel when I am doing it, but she must catch it to notice that I am good at it. The only thing I can think of is that in the sessions I will begin to cry a little then boom out of it before it gets bad. Perhaps thats what she means. I know I don't have split personalities:) I spend alot of time with family and live with 4 roomates, I would think they would have caught on to that by now:)

I know I have normal dissociating at times, like with driving, I will be almost there and not remember half the drive. More so because its a habitual drive.
Or you know the ocassional day dream.

Does anyone else here know more about dissociation? Is it bad to do as an adult and how do you stop doing it, if you don't always recognize it?

Thanks again fior all your advice.

Pressing

Hi Karen

I do daydream some. It weird I can sit through a whole class and listen to every thing the professor says fine. Then I get in the car and my mind wanders all over, and of course in the counseling sessions. I too find myself ocassionally saying what when someone is talking to me:)

I hope it starts to make sense soon because its so dang frustrating.
My counselor does seem pretty knowledgeable, which is a huge plus. Now if I can only learn how to catch when I am spacing trying to avoid things.

Love and hugs to you too!

Pressing

When my counselor told me that I was good at dissociating, I think I was at that point drifting off, though I heard what she said and it brought me back so to speak. I still don't realize I am doing it which is weird for me.

Since she says I am really good at it, it must mean she catches me do it quite a bit. I am not sure thats a bad thing or good thing. I think from the counseling standpoint, its probably not so good, cause I need to let the things come up and deal with them rather than squelching them. When I was a child it was good because it helped me survive, now its probably not so good and I probably have to learn new ways to deal with things, but first I have to learn to recognize when I am doing it.

Thanks for your input Darren:)

Pressing

Thanks Karen,

I do just want to get it all out and deal with it. I don't want to be dealing with this for a long time. It puts a damper on my life, not that living with the secret didn't. I know it affected relationships an all. Heck I am 34 and have never had sex apart from what happned to me when I was a child. Part of that was fear of not trusting men, and part was due to growing up in a church where we learned sex was to be saved for marriage. So when I dated guys, I told them after a few weeks of being with them, that I was not going to have sex with them because I wanted to save that part of love for marraige, coming from my background it made it easier. Not that I didn't desire it at times.

Believe me, guys will still date you after telling them that. I had quite a few relationships. I was always the one to break up with them in fear that they were going to change and become like the men who abused me, sick huh. I was in one relationship for 5 years. He was went to the church I had attended so he also believed in waiting till marriage to be intimate. He gave me a ring after 2 years and I refused it. Then 2 years later he gave a bigger better one and I accepted, thought I was ready then. He was really a sweet guy, never put me down, always asked my advice, so patient with my distancing of myself ect..

One month before the wedding I sat down with him and told him I couldn't do it. I was crying of course. That is wasn't him, its me, and there is so much more I want to do in life before marriage. I never let him know the real reason, never told him about growing up with an abusive, drug addict, alcoholic dad and a mom who also used drugs. He met my parents and they are very different since they began going to church, so he had no idea. Nor about the abuse from a male babysitter.

I just let him go like that. So here is one of my biggest reasons for going to counseling. I know my thoughts are screwed up when it comes to trusting men. But other than that life has been fine, I am pretty happy being single fulfilling my goals ect...But I am reaching that age of not being able to have children soon and I do desire to have at least one, though I will probably be the most over protective mom, that in itself would ruin the poor kid:)

In that sense I know I need to deal with these issues, but I don't necessarily want to go through the pain of it again, don't want it to be a long process. Just want it to be over, and its just begun......so ...yes....its soooo frustrating.

Thanks for hearing me, I can't believe I just let that out and am thinking of pushing submit.

Pressing